Conventional printers including ink jet and laser printers are typically coupled with a host computer system which is configured to interface with the appropriate printer. The host system usually downloads a print job to the printer via an appropriate connection. Typical printers are configured to parse the incoming data, rasterize the data and print an image upon media.
Some conventional arrangements provide a page description language (PDL) driver within the host computer system. Exemplary page description languages include PCL and PostScript™. The associated printer includes one or more parsers which are configured to operate in conjunction with the appropriate page description language drivers of the host computer system. The attached printer usually has plural page description language parsers for use with multiple drivers. Following processing within the appropriate page description language parser, the received data is rasterized and applied to the print engine of the printer.
Executable instructions are implemented as firmware in numerous conventional printer arrangements. The firmware is provided within various read only memory (ROM) storage devices in many conventional devices. Accordingly, some conventional printer arrangements are relatively inflexible and do not easily accommodate changes to firmware to accommodate changes in imaging technology or provide for additional applications.
Therefore, a need exists to provide improved image forming devices and methodologies which overcome these shortcomings of prior devices. For example, it is often desired to verify or test operation of the printer or other image forming device before it leaves the factory for shipment to a customer. Verification or test operations may be implemented as executable instructions which instruct the image forming device to conduct a desired operation and thereafter results of the desired operation may be analyzed to confirm proper operation. Following usage in the factory, such verification or test instructions are not necessary for proper operation but are often unnecessarily shipped with the product thereby consuming otherwise useable resources.